UPDATE ~ US says Saddam aides have ended hunger strike News
UPDATE ~ US says Saddam aides have ended hunger strike

[JURIST] A US Army spokesman said Monday that eight former top aides to Saddam Huseein were taking meals again after having conducted a hunger strike over the weekend. AFP quotes a lawyer for former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan as saying that "My client, who I met for the first time on Saturday, told me that the (detainees) had begun a hunger strike the day before in order to have the Geneva Convention applied and to be able to read newspapers and listen to the radio." As reported yesterday evening in JURIST's Paper Chase, a lawyer for former foreign minister Tariq Aziz said earlier that one of the reasons for the protest had been lack of access to defense counsel. In a separate statement issued in Jordan, Saddam Hussein's defense team called on the Iraqi and American authorities to allow Saddam to see his lawyers; again as reported in JURIST's Paper Chase, a meeting scheduled last week fell through at the last minute for unexplained reasons. AFP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.